Italy’s debt burden now at record high 132% of GDP

Italy’s debt load is now €2.1659 trillion, the Bank of Italy said Friday. The country’s public debt increased by €31 billion in January, bringing the total close to the record-high of €2.1677 billion euro recorded in July 2014.

The main reason debt spiked in January is because the Treasury
increased its available liquidity, or money supply, by €36.3
billion euro, bringing the total to €82.6 billions, Italy’s ANSA
news agency reported Friday.

Gross domestic product to debt in Italy is near 132 percent,
compared to 127.9 percent in 2013, or 102 percent two years ago.
Italy, the third largest economy in Europe, has had its economic
woes overshadowed by the looming crisis in Greece.

Rome hasn’t seen quarterly growth since mid-2011, and the economy
is in need of economic resuscitation. Though the European
Commission isn’t monitoring Italy as strictly as Greece, Rome’s
budget is still under “special
surveillance.”The
European Commission mandated debt-to-GDP target is 60
percent.

Italy’s growth forecast
for 2015 is 0.5 percent, a much rosier picture after the
economy’s less than stellar performance in 2014, when growth
stagnated in the fourth quarter. In 2016, Italy’s central bank
expects 1.5 percent expansion.